


the one in which X narrates the coffee shop getting a new employee (with puppets)

by Karria



Series: LABN Coffee Shop AU [1]
Category: LA by Night, Vampire: The Masquerade
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Gen, Its a coffee shop au, guess what I finally did it, narrated by X!, someone is going to have to write all the trashy au's and it might as well be me, this au is open and anyone can add to it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 16:22:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20745161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karria/pseuds/Karria
Summary: Annabelle gets hired in the coffee shop and X narrates is like a reliable narrator he is.





	the one in which X narrates the coffee shop getting a new employee (with puppets)

Right, so how should we begin?

In the middle of nowhere, there is a small theatre. If we were to set the scene it would go like this: a street at night in a big city; wind whips around gathering the clouds above in preparation for, well a storm. You could almost say that the night was, dark _and_ stormy. That’s where two of our marionettes begin their journey. The first one, we should call him X (it’s a coincidence, I promise) is talking to the other one that, for his own personal safety, shall remain nameless.

“So, Jasper,” X says “how’s the job been?”

“You know how it’s been,” the other puppet answers “You’ve been there. You bothered me the entire time.”

X waves his little puppet-y hands in outrage. “You hurt me. I am hurt. I came to support you, as a good friend should and that’s how you repay me?”

The other puppet puts his face in his hands. “You ordered 7 lattes before discovering that you have no money to pay for them, X. I spent forever preparing them.”

“At least you could practice!”

“I’ve been working there for at least 3 years. I don’t need practice.” Little puppet wiggles around in its black hoodie. “I’ve got enough problems of my own without you trying to help.”

“Is it the new girl?”

“It’s the new girl.”

“She seemed nice,” The X puppet mentions “She gave me a coffee.”

The night grows even stormier when the rain starts; tiny little drops of water hit the sidewalk, the passerby’s and the puppets. We can see umbrellas being opened, as everyone rushed to get to their exponentially dryer homes.

“She shouldn’t have. We don’t just hand out coffee to people who don’t have any money, you know that?”

The hoodie puppet seems irritated. X slowly and awkwardly pats it on the back, perhaps not understanding his friends problem, but at least trying to sympathize with it. He was always so empathetic, X. (Not that I know him, of course. He just seems like a good guy, you know?)

The scene changes as we travel back in time, to this morning. The city folds away, and instead we see the interior of a coffee shop. It's called Maharaja, and it's been here for a few years already. It’s a pretty cosy place overall; decorated in warm colours it had a welcoming atmosphere. In the shop there are a few customers; a woman in a white dress is sitting close to the window, sipping on a cup of herbal tea, next to the counter another woman with streaks of blue in her hair was chatting to Jasper; a few more sat in the back.

(Obviously, they are all puppets, but I don’t need to remind you of that, do I? Good.)

X enters the shop several seconds before the commotion starts and makes his order; not long after that we see another two enter the shop and one of them is Jasper’s boss, Nelli. Now, she and Jasper don’t really like each other; they don’t see eye to eye on a lot of issues but she is not the only owner of the shop- Victor is just away for business reasons at the moment. The two of them try to make their work interactions as painless as possible; although they’ve butted heads more than a few times.

“Annabelle, this is Jasper. Jasper, this is Annabelle, your new co-worker. Be nice.” Nelli says, and Jasper sights. He knew that his bosses were looking for someone new since their last hire left pretty quickly.

Annabelle has a shirt that says “Eat the Rich” and looks somewhat nervous. There is a hushed exchange between the three of them (that X, unfortunately could not hear; the little puppet makes his way over to the counter and tries his best, but all we can hear are murmurs) and Annabelle is ushered quickly in the back, while Jasper finishes preparing the orders.

Another few minutes and Annabelle appears again, this time wearing a worker’s uniform, similar to Jasper’s. Another thing that Nelli took care of; if it came to Victor, he would probably just buy some shirts and be done with it, but those clothes were designed by her especially for this specific purpose. Even Jasper begrudgingly gives her credit for it- they are easy to work in and the material is nice. Also it’s mostly black, which suits Jasper’s general aesthetic quite nicely.

Noticing that Nelli is no longer inside (she doesn’t understand X’s artistic expression, she never did), X moves his way towards the counter.

“Hi! You’re Annabelle?”

“Yeah! Who are you?”

“That’s X,” Jasper interjects, the puppet leaning across the counter ominously. “Who is either leaving or paying for his order.”

“Oh come on, don’t be like that!” X laughs.

“Yeah!” Annabelle agrees. “I mean, he’s not doing anything wrong, is he?”

“That’s right! I like her, Jasper, you could take a page out of her book!” X puts his hands on his hips and Annabelle laughs. 

“Get out, before Nelli sees you. Ok, here is one order for table 3. Can you handle this?”

“Of course I can! I was a waiter before! Which table is 3 again?”

“The one by the… statue thingy.” Jasper points and hands her the order. X knows he believes in learning through practice, so the guidance Annabelle is going to receive is probably going to be a lot like this. Poor thing. Poor, poor thing.

She passes Jasper’s little test with flying colours, and by the time she returns, he looks a little less grumpy than usual.

“Ok, now show me how to use this.” She makes her way over to the Coffee Machine™. The thing about the Coffee Machine™ was the fact that it’s pretty finicky old thing, and the fact that Jasper could actually work with it was 50% experience and 50% a pure miracle. Victor has promised them a new Coffee Machine™ a year ago, but he seemed to be a little sentimental when it came to this one. It was the first thing he bought for the shop after all.

“Maybe you shouldn’t touch that… yet.” Jasper quickly makes his way over to it, trying to stop Annabelle from touching it.

“Why?”

“It breaks easily. We should’ve replaced it a while ago, really.”

“Well, if I’m going to work here, I need to learn how to do it, right?” Jasper tried his best, but Annabelle is, in fact, correct. Befriending Coffee Machine™ was the only way to keep the job. They all knew it. So Jasper sighs and slowly shows all the necessary steps.

The new employee nods and then asks a few questions and then nods again.

“Alright. Your turn.”

X could see the anxiety seeping off Jasper as Annabelle tries to repeat the process. It’s going along quite nicely, and then, all of the sudden…

BOOM!

Well no, it didn’t _really_ blow up. It was more of a very loud crack, which turned all of the heads in the store.

Next, the sequence of events is as follows:

Jasper immediately rushes forwards to try and stop any leakage that might happen, just as Annabelle tries to step back. They of course bump into each other, and when they’re trying to not lose the fight with gravity, Nelli runs out of the backroom.

(And X steals a biscuit. Maybe. Well it’s not stealing, really, more like charity. He can’t afford it after all. He’s sure Jasper would give him one anyways if he asked really nicely.)

“What is going on here?!” Nelli gasps. “Jasper!”

While they get into a very quiet argument about whose fault it was (no need to further disturb the customers after all) Annabelle turns to X and gives him all of the coffee the Coffee Machine™ managed to made before it broke.

“You think they’re gonna fire me?” she asks, a little bit worried.

“Naaah, that happens every… well I wanted to say every week but more like every two days. You’re fiiine. As Victor likes to say, everything’s fiiiine.”

“Victor?”

“Yeah, Victor Temple, your other boss?”

“Oh yeah, wait his name is… Temple? You sure?”

“Absolutely sure.”

The horror falls on Annabelle’s face. “Oh, no,” she whispers.

The theatre’s curtain slowly falls, and the puppets go to their little homes to lay down in their little puppet beds for the night.

Later, perhaps, there’ll be another story.


End file.
